Kurama's Apartment
by lost pen caps
Summary: Kurama recieves a whole apartment of his own as a birthday present from his mother and stepdad! Following his mother's wishes he settles into the apartment, and gets a job, but will fate leave him alone so peacefully? Yeah right!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All YYH characters belong to Yoshihiro Togashi and so does the original story-line which I plan to just continue off of.

_A/N: Mushy scenes have COOTIES! So there won't be any in this story... hopefully. -.-;;_

_There will also be minimal cussing. Hopefully that'll be managed without anybody seeming too out of character._

_One last thing: If this storyline sounds very similar to a particular author named foxyandredpandy's work, I am she so don't worry, it isn't plagiarism. Any other plagiarism will be/is purely accidental._

Chapter 1

A black-clad boyishly short figure moved slowly through the alley, quite unlike his usual speedy self. His irate mutterings were barely discernable over the crinkle of the plastic shopping bags he held.

"Hiei, please do this, please do that. Hn, does that stupid fox think that saying 'please' will make me want to do it? Next time, he's doing the grocery shopping. Documents job deadline, my-"

Hiei stopped his rant and looked around. "Come out and face me head on. Sneak attacks won't work."

Immediately, he was surrounded by five members of the local street-gang. Without warning, they attacked.

They were all knocked flat on the ground in less than a second.

'_0.4 seconds._' Hiei frowned at a silver sports watch Yukina had given him on some human holiday. '_That's too much time against these goons. I need to train more._'

Resignedly, he started walking through the dank alley once more.

He would have continued doing so if someone running the other way hadn't crashed straight into him. Caught by surprise, he was knocked to the ground, shopping bags and all.

"Sorry! O gosh, sorry! They'll kill me if I don't get to 'em on time!" A heavily-accented feminine voice called back to him. Hiei got up from the ground and phased in front of the girl as she turned to face the front.

The girl looked back ahead of herself, and came to a halt. A confused expression came onto her face as she looked back and forth, clearly puzzling over his seemingly instant transportation. Hiei stepped forward and held her by the front of her shirt.

"I'll kill you if you don't give back that wallet you stole." he voiced calmly and seriously. At the same time, Hiei hoped that she wouldn't be smart enough to see through his bluff, since he couldn't harm any humans due to the rule Enki had made after becoming the ultimate Makai ruler.

"What wallet 'tcha talkin' 'bout, mister?" she looked up at him with an almost too-puzzled face. It seemed that she had accepted the bluff for what it seemed and was now calling it with a bluff of her own. Inwardly, Hiei sighed. What was it with him and meeting headstrong females? Her gaze grew defiant. She was obviously not going to give up.

The girl unexpectedly stiffened in fear, her eyes widening to the size of frying pans, and her pupils becoming two dark pinpoints in the center of each. He could sense an aura of fear washing off of her and sighed out loud. '_Now that's like the typical pathetic human. Do they really value their lives so..._' his thoughts were interrupted.

"S-sp-spid-d-der." she stuttered in a weak voice before slumping forward in a dead faint. Hiei, bewildered, acted subconsciously and caught her. Almost as immediately, he remembered that she could be faking the faint and dropped her. '_What kind of human in their right mind wouldn't bat an eye at a death threat, while fainting at the sight of a harmless insect?_' he reasoned to himself, unconsciously excusing himself for dropping her coldly. He stared at her limp form on the ground and,deciding she wasn't in her right mind, began searching for Kurama's wallet in her numerous pockets. After a while, he gave up and pulled the girl onto his back. He figured that if he took the thief to Kurama, there was nothing Kurama could complain about. Picking up his shopping bags, he decided to get his walk home over with before more stupid humans came. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop over the crowded city, Hiei disappeared from the human eye.

_A/N: Sorry for any mistakes I make about the situation in the Makai at the end of YYH. I'm just going by what I remember from reading the books._

After much teasing from Kurama at having brought a girl home, the usual glare accompanied by a short explanation from Hiei, and a quick search of the girl, the mysterious bug-phobic pickpocket was put to Kurama's bed. To prevent any attempts at escaping, Hiei was put in a futon next to the bed. Kurama, having to stay awake anyway, sat at the dining table, coffee cup held in one hand while the other showed off amazing one-hand typing abilities on a laptop. His boss, normally an easy-going and affable man, absolutely lost it when deadlines were ignored.

Kurama chuckled at the memory of the obvious disbelief that had been on Hiei's face when he had said that. He really hadn't meant for it to sound like an excuse for not being able to train, but that was how Hiei had taken it. In exchange, he had agreed to let Hiei live with him to train together for as much as the fire demon desired. This had mollified the said fire demon. At least half-way. Not even ten minutes had passed after making the deal, when Hiei had started pacing around the room, occasionally glancing over Kurama's shoulder. Thirty minutes afterwards, the ever-impatient demon had managed to ask "Are you done?" at least a hundred times. Before he managed to say it for what Kurama was sure was the two hundredth time, Kurama threw out the shorter demon with a shopping list and his wallet, refusing to let him back in without the groceries.

Kurama smiled and typed the last adjustment to his work. He saved it all and printed it out. Setting his coffee cup on the table, he pulled out a manila folder and neatly stuffed the printed papers in. He had been lucky to find such a lazy, but still good-paying job that still allowed for him to train for the next upcoming Makai tournament. His red hair swishing in a neat ponytail behind him, he went over to the bookshelf, selected a book, and sat down to read until dawn.

Meanwhile, in the bedroom, Hiei kept thinking about the scene when Mukuro had given him a vacation.

"_There's a faint human ki coming from the west of Guillotine Hill, and another from the south of this castle." Mukuro stated in a monotone. "Get the humans back to their own realm."_

_10 minutes later, Hiei returned to the castle for further instructions. Mukuro looked at him, her face expressionless. He shifted around, wondering at her unusual silence._

"_It seems that this realm has become as peaceful as it ever will be. The only missions that are coming in these days are human retrievals, with the rare uprisings of weak demons. When Enki assigned us to 'clean-up' duty, he also assigned me to be the over seer of such affairs, a sort of boss, in human terms." Mukuro paused and in her usual abrupt style said, "In the human realm, bosses give their hardest workers a break once in a while, called a vacation." She continued somewhat reluctantly. "Go. Take a vacation. It's unfair for you to be stuck here doing such menial tasks. You would be better off elsewhere training for the next tournament."_

_Hiei looked momentarily stunned. He blinked then gave a half-smile. "Heh, read my mind, didn't you? But what about you? Are you sure you want to rot here while I go off and get stronger?" _

_"No, of course I don't want to stay here 'and rot' as you so delicately put it." A shadow crossed her face then, disappearing just as quickly as it appeared. "Train hard. I hope to face you at the next tournament." she smirked at him, all traces of the shadow gone._

There was just something about the conversation that seemed shady. Something he couldn't put his finger on, no matter how many times he replayed the scene over and over again inside his mind. Maybe Kurama could help. As far as he knew, the human-turned-fox demon was the best at figuring these kinds of things out.

Practice-sparring with Kurama had been his 2nd reason for coming to Kurama's apartment. When Kurama had proved too busy with his job, he had agreed to wait until Kurama was finished with this deadline. His grocery trip had been the result of managing to annoy even the most patient Kurama. 'At least he doesn't live with his mother anymore.' Hiei thought. The last thing he wanted was to live with a female human while he was on vacation.

_A/N: Foreshadowing? What's that? (way-too-innocent look) _

_Constructive criticism will be much loved. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: YYH belongs to Yoshihiro Togashi. Thankfully. If YYH had belonged to anyone else, the series wouldn't have become popular.**

Playful twittering rang out in a wondrous bird-song from outside the apartment. Golden sun rays streamed through between the curtains of Kurama's bedroom windows, brightly lighting the faces of both its occupants. The boy, though still asleep, smiled into the sunlight, delighting in its comfortable warmth. The girl, sleeping on the bed, frowned at the heat and pulled the covers over herself. Her attempt at a retreat into the covers was futile. The irritating heat only got hotter and hotter. Sweating, she hoped someone else would get up and pull the drapes together for her. It wasn't happening.

Frustrated at the inconsideration of the sun and whoever was in the room with her, she finally threw the covers off and peeled out of her overcoat and shirt. She sighed in relief when she felt a cool draft sweep over her uncovered skin. Fortunately, the tank top she still wore allowed the cool draft to lightly touch over her skin unhindered. She attempted to take off her pants, when she fell off the bed with a thud. This was no surprise, since she still hadn't opened her eyes yet. Grumbling about stupid orphanage bunk beds, the girl started to drag herself over to the bathroom door.

Hiei had woken up because of the thud. Confused, he rubbed his eyes and spotted an odd sight. The girl was pawing along a wall, her eyes closed, muttering about a missing bathroom door. Not only that, but the fool was also unintentionally inching her way towards Kurama's wooden wardrobe and the fire demon. Hiei watched as she finally reached the wardrobe and bonked her head on it.

"Owwwiee….." she whimpered, rubbing her forehead. Hiei blinked as he noticed that her pants were half-on and half-off, exposing a sliver of white skin and a pink piece of cloth with a teddy bear on it. The pink piece of cloth looked several sizes too large for her and seemed on the verge of falling off. By the time he realized he was staring at her underwear, it was too late to feign sleep. She turned towards him and muttered, "Where am I?"

All thoughts of her taste in intimate wear aside, he had to admit that it was amusing to watch her blink, rub her eyes, blink again, and finally bug out her eyes as her brain accepted what her sleepy eyes had told her. The most amusing part was when she blushed profusely until her face looked like a tomato, jerked her pants back up and started walking backwards against the wardrobe, clearly believing that she had a superhuman power to pass through solid objects. In fact, it was all very amusing, until she stretched back her hand and slapped him, screaming.

"PERVERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" her screams echoed throughout the apartment building. A few pigeons roosting on the roof took off, startled.

Still half-asleep, Kurama came in to find them sitting on the floor in opposite corners of the room. He sighed, apologized to the girl who remained speechless in her embarrassment, and decided to ask for his wallet from the thief after breakfast. Confident that he would eventually get his wallet back, he listened to his inner gentleman and pulled the two out to the dining table. After that, he served them both a bowl of instant ramen, and then sat down with his own bowl. The girl stared at her bowl, disgust curling her lip unattractively.

Suddenly she sat up, snatched the bowls of ramen out from under the boys' noses, and walked to the gas range with all 3 bowls. She pulled out a frying pan, some vegetables, spices, and a knife from various places and started cooking. Within five minutes she was finished and had brought back three steaming plates of a strange-looking but aromatic pasta-salad. She served the plates, and urged them to eat, and assuring them that it was 10 times healthier than the instant ramen. The boys also began to eat, at first tentatively, but then ravenously.

"Hey this is really good!!" the red-haired boy exclaimed. "Way better than the instant ramen we've been having everyday."

"You should stay here with us forever and cook us breakfast everyday!" the boy she had tried to pickpocket finally smiled sincerely. "The crunchy center of the pasta surrounded by a mushy exterior really makes it fun to munch on. How did you do it?" She froze, a chill sweeping through her spine. A feeling of foreboding doom insisted that she beat a hasty retreat out the apartment door. It also pleaded her to jump out the window if the door was locked. Sweat dripped from her hands, surprising her with its volume. _There's something wrong here!_ she could hear its scream reverbrate through her skull.

"... Ah-I didn't do anythin' to make it like th-that…" her heavy Osakan accent grew heavier in her mounting panic. She looked nervously from one boy to the other. Was it just her or were their faces becoming more and more demonic? As if in answer to her unspoken question, the red-haired boy grabbed her wrist and pulled it towards him. Her other wrist was claimed by the other boy, whose smile had gone from angelically sweet to sadistically menacing in those few moments. Their eyes rolled to the backs of their heads and they grinned, showing blood-stained teeth and mouths filled with not pasta, but human fingers. She was shocked, paralyzed by fear. Her throat had long since constricted and her arms wouldn't jerk back the way she was begging them to.

"Give us some more, why don't you?" they said in discordant tones, their voices rolling over each other in a way that should've been comical, but instead, only added to her horror. It was then that she noticed her hands. Blood, not sweat, dripped from the sockets of her missing digits. Those hadn't been just any human's fingers in their mouths. They were hers!

A hand grasped her shoulder roughly. She bit back her scream as she blinked and the boys' faces returned to normal. Her hands were back at her sides, and the bowl of instant ramen still sat in front of her, untouched. The boys had already finished their ramen and were looking at her strangely for not eating. Kurama looked at her thoughtfully and asked, "Are you feeling alright Miss……..?" With all the chaos and turmoil, they had never gotten a chance to ask her name. She shook off the troubling images and let out a relieved sigh.

"Yeah, it ain't anythin'. Kaili. Call me Kaili." her normal degree of heavy Osakan accent was back. "What about you an' that other guy?"

"That's unimportant right now. Alright, Miss Kaili. Please eat, and then we can discuss your….. temporary possession of my wallet." Kurama smiled gently. Kaili's face became inscrutable and she picked up her chopsticks slowly. Noticing that the others were waiting on her, she finished the noodles in one slurp. Ignoring Kurama's momentary look of impressed disgust, she carefully put up her bowl and returned to her seat at the table.

"I don't know whatcha mean by your wallet, mister." Kaili answered. "Have you lost it by any chance?" her face held no trace of any emotions. Kurama frowned at her, and then caught sight of the clock behind her. He was going to be late for work at this rate.

"Look, right now I'm late for work, so I'm going to leave you here Miss Kaili, in the sensitive care of my friend, and until I'm back I want you to think about where my wallet could've gone. If you still haven't remembered by then, you have to realize I'm in no real rush to get it back. You could just sit in that chair forever for all I care. Just as long as I get it back sometime. Do you understand?" Kurama said amiably, his voice showing no hint of the clear threat he was talking about. Kaili stared at him.

"Well, mister, I guess I'll have to stay awhile then, 'cause I don't have it." Kaili stated, her defiance almost unveiled in her surprise at the unprecedented threat.

"We'll see about that, now, won't we?" she could've sworn his smile held a hint of laughter. He walked out the door. She was alone with the black-haired boy. He hadn't flinched or even moved from his seat in the table when his friend had walked out. He really hadn't smiled at all since she had first seen him. She thought back to her scary daydream and remembered his smile. She became curious as a stray thought popped into her head. _I wonder if it'd really look like th-_

"Why don't you just give the wallet back? There isn't much money in it." Hiei interrupted her thoughts. She blinked. _How rude. _Soon after she had explicitly said that she didn't have the wallet, too. Of course, she did have it, but he could at least give her the benefit of a doubt. After all, wasn't it supposed to be innocent until proven guilty? A simple statement from the boy startled her from her reverie. "Where I come from, the accused are considered guilty until proven innocent." he looked at her frozen expression. "I didn't read your mind. I just had the feeling that you were thinking something like that." His last statement was said in a bland tone, making it impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic or honest.

However, he had misunderstood the shocked look on her face. Slowly, her mouth curved into a delighted grin while her hands came to clasp together in front of her chest. Apparently, she hadn't heard him at all.

"That what I think it is?! Lord, in't this the darndest luckiest thing that's happen'd t'me!!" Kaili exclaimed excitedly, rushing over to confirm what she had seen. Hiei blinked in the vacuum created by her sudden absence from the dining room chair and craned his neck over to see what the silly human was gushing over. Zeroing in on the tiny object cupped in her hand, he stood up and snatched it away in a fit of bemused anxiety.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you." he held a sharp fingernail at her throat. Though he was only two inches taller than her at most, Kaili felt as if she were looking up at a face at least three feet above her. Remembering her daydream, her eyes widened and she froze in fear. However, she didn't let Hiei keep his knowing smirk at her typical human reaction. As her gaze turned defiant, her head bobbed back and she bit down on the offending finger.

For a brief moment, silence dominated the apartment complex. Even the birds stopped chattering outside. In that one moment, the world seemed to hold its breath for this entirely unprecedented situation in which an ignorantly brash and an arrogantly grouchy personality met to test their mettle against one another. The silence of the birds outside seemed to harangue Kaili for such an unthinking action. Staring into the unfathomable depths of Hiei's stare, she agreed with them, gently suppressing a panicked urge to scream and run.

The fire demon, on his part, recovered from his surprise soon and pulled his finger out of her mouth, looking like he wanted nothing more than to wash his finger of the human slime. He was just about to walk away with his precious hiruiseki when he was confronted by a stubborn insolent expression.

"Hey, mister! You invaded m' pers'nal space, s'I did the same t' yours. An eye f'r an eye, that's what my mom always taught me. And I just want'd t' see yer pretty necklace! I wasn't gonna steal it, I promise." his sullen look spoke volumes. "Cross my heart 'n' hope t' die!" she affirmed her vow. He turned away, no longer interested, thinking of taking a cat nap in the Kurama's hammock hanging in the apartment veranda.

Left so abruptly to her own devices, Kaili pouted for a few minutes. Then the suicidal curious cat in her decided that she had to find out what made that necklace so important to the otherwise stoic boy. Maybe she could try to steal it again. Unwittingly deciding that was her best course of action, she crept out into the veranda and carefully reached a hand toward the necklace dangling from his wrist. Hiei seemed to slumber on, oblivious to her forthcoming larceny.

Rejoicing in his deep sleep and confidence in her ninja-like sneaking skills skyrocketing, the fact that she was bound, gagged, blindfolded and tossed into a dark closet didn't register until a few moments later, when her expectant hand grasped thin air. Once again, the world held still for an extended moment until she let out an ear-splitting scream around the cloth gag binding her mouth.

Hiei smirked as the wondrous muffling effects of cotton took its toll on his victim's rancor. Once she realized that he did not care about what little noise she could make around her gag, she fell silent. Eventually, Hiei drifted into true slumber as Kaili nodded off from sheer boredom.

Kurama wasn't sure what to expect when he walked in the apartment door. He did know that the silence was not a good thing. A crazy part of his mind expected to find the girl in two amidst a pool of blood even as the sensible part of his mind reassured him that Hiei now had a higher tolerance of humans. The moment of truth came, and he slammed the door wide open in a rush, hoping that he wouldn't have to wash the living room rug of blood.

Instead, a completely unexpected sight greeted his eyes. Raising a quizzical brow, he stared at the scene in front of him, not entirely sure if he was hallucinating or not. He had expected to find Hiei holding the pickpocket in a chokehold not trying to feed her dinner with a spoon. As the bizarre picture drew a blank from his opened mouth, both Kaili and Hiei turned to find the red-haired boy uncharacteristically caught off guard.

A/N: I promise it gets better. I really do. I'm just having a hard time trying to keep Kaili from turning into a Mary Sue. I admit that initially she was a shameless self-insertion and that she had a lot cooler powers than an Osakan accent (which is kinda hard to translate into English since I have no idea what the difference between normal Japanese and Osakan Japanese sounds like), pickpocketing, and an all-encompassing unhealthy ignorance of what is good for her survival. ;; She seems stupidly brash doesn't she? Yes, I added in a lot of character faults when I realized how lame OC-coupling could be.

Well, in my case, I hope to build up a bit more realistic relationship between my OC and Hiei. More realistic meaning that she won't become a love interest. More like a friend. And they will do so by going through some rigorous training for some epic villain-fighting or whatever. Yay. Or I will just stick to silly little misadventures that end all warm and fuzzy and bring the inhabitants of Kurama's apartment closer together.

Yes, I think that's what I originally had planned. With the renaming of "Hey!" to "Kurama's Apartment" I'm pretty sure I changed the plotline of the story to the misadventures genre. It's been so long I'm really uncertain. ;; Well, forgive what mistakes I make and please make sure to leave constructive criticism!! Don't bash me for the self-insertion, please. It really was a favorite childhood daydream of mine to imagine myself a part of Yuusuke's motley band of fighters. Especially during the tournament matches. :

As for the content of this chapter, couldn't you just imagine Hiei going all Gollum with his hiruiseki? Laughs "My precioussssss..."

Kaili's demented daydream/hallucination will be explained soon. Yes, there was a reason to the randomness of that part. I hope it scared you guys, though. I do love to scare people.

R and R doesn't just stand for "rest and relaxation," you know!


End file.
